


Res nullius

by Pinophyta



Series: Legion Courier and Vulpes [2]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Established Relationship, Healing, Legion-Aligned Courier, M/M, Post-Game(s), Rivalry, not quite medical kink but like... caring kink?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-24 01:08:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30064344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pinophyta/pseuds/Pinophyta
Summary: A Legion-aligned Courier does everything right, but the NCR still wins the second battle for the Hoover Dam. With an injured Vulpes Inculta in tow, they go into hiding and plan their next move.
Relationships: Male Courier/Vulpes Inculta
Series: Legion Courier and Vulpes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2211813
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	1. Day 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel of sorts to this fic of mine, "Strength 10, Intelligence 10": https://archiveofourown.org/works/12068547
> 
> If you don't feel like reading it, here's the gist of it: Vulpes resents the Courier for how fast he rose along the ranks of the Legion, and they don't get along very well... but they've had sex a couple of times because they're attracted to each other. The Courier is a field medic of sorts, with brains AND brawn, and is as good at subterfuge as Vulpes.
> 
> Normally I wouldn't post a WIP so early, but today is the ides of March so I thought it was appropriate :D Also this has no beta and minimal editing, and I don't know how often I'll be able to upload it, but let's goooo.
> 
> Also, rating WILL go up for sex, and I might add a warning for talks of suicide (the legion are conditioned to die before being captured, so that's brought up)

Vulpes regains his senses one at a time. He hears the crickets, the crackling of a low fire nearby, but no voices or footsteps at all. He knows he's alive, but not in a Legion camp. Which can only mean that the second battle for the Hoover Dam is over, and that they lost.

He hears a rustling. Soft footsteps, a tent flap opening. His eyes feel heavy, but he tries to open them. It's too dark to see, but when the intruder settles on the floor near him, he recognizes his presence.

It's the courier. He hears him rummage through his medical kit, the soft clink of instruments and syringes being manipulated, the rustle of bandages being unfurled, cut and set aside.

"Try to keep your voice down." the courier whispers. "We're in deathclaw territory."

Even if he wanted to shout, Vulpes couldn’t. His whole body is in pain, his throat is dry and it hurts to even swallow. He has a million questions to ask. The last thing he remembers is a loud explosion, right as he was leading the charge of a platoon. After that… nothing.

“How am I alive?” he whispers, voice hoarse like hell.

The courier unscrews the lid of a water bottle and carefully offers it to Vulpes, who drinks eagerly.

“Because I didn’t let you die.” he answers.

It makes him angry, but his senses are too dulled and his body aches, he can barely move and his head is spinning. When he feels the prick of a needle in his arm he understands his own confusion, and his dehydration. He doesn’t want to be sedated, specially not with profligate drugs, but he’s so angry about so many things that he can’t muster a protest. The med-x slowly dulls the pain, but also mellows his senses. Resigned, he begins to try to put his thoughts in order. And first and foremost, he needs to know exactly how badly they lost.

“...what happened?” he whispers.

The courier stops his work, and even though Vulpes can barely see him, he can tell he’s got his head on the palm of his hand, a weary gesture he’s seen him do only a couple of times.

“We lost.” he says. His voice is full of barely contained sorrow. “The dam, the Fort… Everything.”

Vulpes doesn’t often feel fear. When it begins to simmer inside of him, he struggles to keep it in check.

“And Caesar?”

It takes the Courier a few long seconds to answer.

“Gone.”

He zips up his medical kit and puts it aside, and now Vulpes can see his silhouette, hunched over in quiet despair.

“You know...” he continues, his voice shaky. “I heard it was a sniper. Got him right on the side of the head.” he scoffs. “After all those hours to take out that tumor… and one fucking bullet just...”

He aims a finger at his forehead and mimics pulling the trigger, and he tries to laugh, but the rage inside of him is obvious.

The fear is replaced by an overwhelming sadness, and for the first time in many years, Vulpes cries. He sheds a tear for Caesar, the man who made him into who he is. But the anger soon comes back, when he thinks about how dear the Courier was to Caesar, how easily he brought him into the fold, and even though Vulpes had tried to put that resentment to rest, in this moment it comes back with a vengeance. Specially because the Courier is here, hiding inside of a cave, instead of doing what Caesar was so obviously preparing him for.

“You...” he says. “You betrayed the Legion. You’ve doomed us both.”

The courier leans closer to him.

“I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I did everything I could, and I thought it would be enough, but...”

“You’re here! Hiding away, like a rat after jumping off a sinking ship!”

His lungs hurt when he tries to raise his voice. He sees the courier’s silhouette, shaking his head.

“There was nothing to be done, Vulpes. There were troops everywhere. They had robots, pre-war sentry bots along with securitrons. I don’t know how it slipped past us, but somehow... the NCR pulled a miracle today.”

Vulpes weakly raises his arm, and he touches the courier’s shoulder softly with the back of his hand.

“Why didn’t you do what you were supposed to?”

The courier turns to him.

“And what was that, Vulpes? Claim the dam for Caesar? That was Lanius’ job, not mine. Caesar wouldn’t make me legate, remember?”

Vulpes sighs, exasperated. How could someone so smart and well educated be so dense?

“He was preparing you to take over the Legion, you fool. You were supposed to be the next Caesar.”

The courier sits in silence, pondering Vulpes’ words. He and Caesar had never talked about the future of the Legion beyond the battle for the dam, not even before the brain surgery. The courier assumed the man had a plan for it, but that it didn’t concern him. And yet Vulpes sounded certain that this was Caesar’s plan. He can’t quite believe it, and in any event, it’s pointless now because the Legion…

The Legion no longer exists.

Vulpes quickly falls asleep, but the Courier continues to watch over him. Vulpes doesn’t know. He was knocked out pretty early on, when things were just beginning to go south. He saw Vulpes and his platoon go up in a puff of dust and rocks, and he feared the worst. He managed to pull Vulpes out of the rubble, and after that he focused all his efforts on stabilizing him.

Nothing went as planned. All of their recon and their sabotage efforts weren’t enough to weaken the NCR. Something must have slipped past them, something important, because the NCR troops were well equipped, high on morale, and… numerous.

The courier stands up, and pulls back the tarp he’s hung to shelter them for the night. He sees the lights of Vegas in the distance, shining triumphant, like nothing special happened today. The courier wonders if he’ll be able to set foot on it ever again.

He knows of a shack nearby, an old prospector shelter with access to a clean well and little else in its favor. They need to stay away from the NCR, from all civilization in fact, at least until Vulpes heals. After that…

Well, the courier doesn’t want to think too much about it. He put all his chips on the Legion, and he lost. For better or for worse, it’s time to cash out.


	2. Day 2

Lacking a stethoscope, the Courier lays his ear on Vulpes’ chest. He listens intently for any rattling, but fortunately the sound is clear and calm. He closes his eyes, and exhales the breath he himself was holding. His worst fear hasn’t come true.

He had carried Vulpes the whole way through, and even though he tried to be gentle with the movement at first, eventually he had to hurry up. First to avoid getting spotted by the NCR, and then to avoid being out in the open after dark. Vulpes had several broken bones, most likely including ribs, and he was afraid that the movement could rattle something inside and puncture his lungs. Fortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

His back hurts in a way it hasn’t in years. He’s a strong man, and it’s not the first time he’s had to carry an injured man in his arms, but the trek had been long and relentless. It would have helped if he knew where he was going from the start, but the Courier hadn’t planned for this scenario. He had been so confident in the Legion’s victory, that he never thought of a backup plan. The only smart foresight he had before the battle was to stock his bag well, with real medicine. Caesar had tried to get him to stick to Legion approved healing methods, but he never tried too hard. As long as he was the exception, he was willing to let the man practice medicine his way. After all, his medical skills were not that different from the medical robot: a thing Caesar could offer as a gift for those he saw worthy.

Regardless, the Courier has nothing but regrets now. He should have prepared a way out for this scenario. Maybe he could have reinforced this very shack, and stocked it with food and medicine. He’d forgotten all about it until he saw the satellites up Black Mountain, and he remembered the one time he stumbled upon it while traveling south.

It’s pointless to think about all he could have done, and he knows it. He’s brought back to reality by a gentle touch, and he realizes he’s had his ear on Vulpes’ chest this whole time, entranced by his breathing and the beating of his heart.

His first instinct is to pull away, but to his surprise, Vulpes begins to gently stroke his shorn hair. The Courier is caught completely off guard, and the soft caress is almost enough to undo him emotionally. He keeps his head in place, eyes closed, on the verge of tears.

Vulpes doesn’t know why he doesn’t immediately push the Courier away. He still feels woozy, but his mind is much clearer now. He simply finds touching the other man… reassuring.

The pain is a lot stronger now, even though laying on an actual bed has alleviated his discomfort. He looks around the dusty room, little more than a dirty warehouse full of scraps and broken tools. A prospector’s den, most likely, or perhaps a hideout for smugglers. It doesn’t look like it’s been inhabited in a while.

“Where are we?” he asks the Courier.

The man finally sits up, and reaches for his doctor bag like the fleeting moment of physical intimacy didn’t happen.

“In the mountains, still in deathclaw territory. So, remember to keep it down.”

He takes out a stimpak and begins to disinfect Vulpes’ arm to apply it. Vulpes doesn’t look too amused.

“You can keep your profligate drugs.” he says with disgust.

“Healing powder ain’t gonna cut it, I’m afraid.” he says, injecting Vulpes with as much care as he can. He knows it’s not the prick of the needle what bothers Vulpes.

“So eager to return to profligate habits?” he says.

The Courier somewhat expected that.

“I never stopped using medicine. You know this.”

It’s true. It was no secret that Caesar allowed him to use these healing methods. He disagreed when the Courier used them on lowly recruits, or even slaves, but he always looked the other way. This little kindness did wonders for Legion morale. Vulpes never saw it this way. Every favor Caesar bestowed upon the Courier just fed his resentment.

Vulpes scoffs, and then sighs, visibly tired.

“Why do you bother? All of this will just make my corpse look healthier.”

The courier tosses the empty stimpak into his bag.

“Ideally, there will be no corpse. And the sooner you can walk on your own, the better.”

Vulpes stares at him.

“What for?” he asks.

“So I don’t have to carry you. I don’t mean to complain, but my back is killing me.”

All he gets from Vulpes is a confused look.

“But why? Where do you want us to go?”

The question stumps the Courier, who hasn’t thought that far ahead. All he knows is that they have enough food to last a week, and that going around the mountains hunting is not a viable option. Too much competition, in the form of angry, and possibly randy, deathclaws.

“Somewhere with less deathclaws per capita, for sure.” he answers.

Vulpes isn’t satisfied with the vague answer.

“Perhaps that’s a better end than hanging from an NCR rope.” he says.

The courier crosses his arms and sits back on the chair.

“That ain’t gonna happen.”

“Really, now? So confident are you that the NCR has suddenly and completely forgotten your face?”

The Courier tips his head. The shame of that night months ago, when he blew his cover with the NCR, still hangs bitter over his head.

He would be lying if he said that being discovered didn’t help his commitment to the Legion. Before that night, he was 99% sure that he wanted to spend the rest of his life as a Legionary. After it, he had no choice.

“No.” he admits, bitterly. “But I wasn’t exactly a celebrity to begin with. As soon as we get out of Nevada, the NCR better have one hell of a police sketch to identify me.”

Vulpes scoffs, almost laughing.

“I’m sure word of your acts won’t reach beyond the border...”

The Courier shrugs, but deep inside he’s uncertain.

“What about you?” he asks “How well do you think the NCR knows your face?”

Any hint of amusement leaves Vulpes’ face. As good as he is at getting to where he doesn’t belong, blending in and going unseen, he was never that careful on the Strip. The NCR presence there was thin, mostly drunken soldiers on leave, but someone with a sharp eye might have connected the dots between his face, and Vulpes Inculta’s reputation.

He doesn’t have an answer. Any intel he had on the NCR was worthless now, anyway, on account of how much of what he learned before the battle was wrong.

“Well enough to make me wary.” he finally answers.

The Courier isn’t as concerned. He’s good at being the center of attention, but he’s even better at going unnoticed. The only real problem is that the NCR will be on the lookout for Legion deserters, and two men traveling alone will raise suspicion. Perhaps they could pass off as caravaneers, pretend that their pack brahmin (along with their license) got stolen by raiders.

The Courier chuckles to himself. Nobody would ever buy that, not now.

“Don’t worry.” he says “We’ll figure something out. There’s some old clothes in one of the crates out back. I’m not sure all of it is wearable, but even rags would be an improvement.”

Their Legion clothes are torn and dusty, but are still a dead giveaway. Great for hiding wounds, not so great for camouflage.

Vulpes palms the side of his chest with a tentative hand. He tries to hide it, but can’t help wincing in pain.

“How many of those profligate drugs do you have left?” he asks.

“Six stimpaks, but only two med-x.”

Vulpes laments to hear it. A part of him wishes the Courier had enough of those painkillers to overdose and get it over with.

“Get some rest.” the Courier adds. “We have water and food. You still have a lot of healing to do.”

Oh, the Courier must be loving this, Vulpes thinks. Every time he’s tried to play doctor with him, he’s pushed him away. Finally having him at his mercy must feel like a victory. Oh joy.

But to his surprise, he doesn’t abhor this situation as much as he should. It’s… comforting, in a way, to know he’s in the Courier’s hands. He’s never understood why, but the Courier enjoys healing others, and he’s remarkably good at it. The part of Vulpes that wants to go on fighting, that wants to _live_ , is reassured to be in his hands.


End file.
